How to add album art and update album information

Some of our readers wanted to know how to update the album information for the tracks in their music library and how to add album covers, so that they show up in Windows Media Player. In this tutorial we will try to cover both topics as good as possible.

How to update album information

First, start Windows Media Player and navigate to the albums that don’t have all the necessary information.

Windows Media Player
Open the album for which you want to add the missing information.

Windows Media Player

Now, select all tracks and from the right-click menu select ‘Find Album Info’.

Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player will start a wizard that will help you find and update the missing album information. If all the selected tracks are from the same album, select the appropriate option and click on Next.

Windows Media Player

The wizard will start searching for the album in its database. If the search will return no results, you will have to update the existing information and include what you know about it.

Windows Media Player

In this example, both the album and the artist are unknown. Type the name of the artist and the album and then click on Done.

Windows Media Player
The wizard searches again and, if it is found in the database, you will be asked to confirm that the album information is correct.

Windows Media Player

If that is the case, click on Finish and Windows Media Player will update all the tracks from the album to include all the available information. This can include details such as music genre, publisher, year of publishing, album art, etc.

How to add album art

For each album in your music library, Windows Media Player shows the available album art. If this is not available, the album will be displayed as a blank CD case. To manually add the album art, do the following:

First, find the album covers using any search engine you like and then save it on your PC. Then, open Windows Media Player, navigate through your music library and find that specific album.

To add the album art, just drag and drop the covers on top of the album. As you can see in the screenshot below, a ‘+’ sign will appear.

Windows Media Player

When you move the covers on top of the album, release the left mouse button. Another method is to select the image containing the covers, right click on it and select Copy.

Then, open the album in Windows Media Player, right click on it and select ‘Paste Album Art’.

Windows Media Player

Either way, the next time you open that album in Windows Media Player, you will be able to see the covers.

Windows Media Player

Related articles:
Windows Media Player 11
Windows Media Player 11 Keyboard shortcuts
How to burn an Audio CD

34 Replies to “How to add album art and update album information

  1. A better editing tool
    If you’re editing a LOT of information in music files, a VERY useful utility program to have handy is Tag&Rename. See for the program. One of the nice features TR is that if you use the Multi-File Tag Editor tab, and click the Edit All Supported Tag Fields, you can embed the album image into the file. I’ve used this on obscure recordings that don’t always show up in the various online databases, for podcasts, and for private or self-published recordings. (Our church choir director and his son did some piano-cello duets and burned them to CD, so naturally =that= wouldn’t be in the online databases, for example.) Anyway, TR is a great tool, very useful for those of us who have extensive music collections to manage. –Steve

  2. CD Ripping
    I’ve been ripping my CDs over the last week with no problems,but recently,when I’ve been putting them in,no info has downloaded,the first song rips to library then stops.When I restart it,it downloads the rest of the CD but it won’t allow me to find or update the album info.And when I go into library to do it manually,the album is not in internet connection is fine,so I really don’t know what is happening.
    I’ve tried going into Now Playing,more options & ticking Connect to the Internet,it’s not that either.
    Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.


    1. I am having a similar
      I am having a similar problem–I right click to find album info and the pane won’t open right, adn help is no help. All my correct boxes are ticked.

  3. I’ve been able to copy and
    I’ve been able to copy and paste album art without a problem BUT it doesn’t always “stick”–what’s going on? I’ve been working here for hours to get the correct album art just to find that the image I’ve pasted onto one album has also pasted onto many others. Is there something I’m not doing right? If so, let me know because I’m getting REALLY frustrated!

    1. It takes time.
      Sometimes it takes time for the album art to appear. Just wait or browse out of the folder and come back and the album art will show up.
      If you pasted the wrong album art then paste again the right one and it will be replaced.

  4. Restored Albums – No Art
    I had to restore my albums from a backup. The album art only appeared for those albums where I had manually entered an image.
    If I use the “Find Album Info” function, it finds the album info including the image, but if I accept the information, it is not filling in the image.
    There are 1000+ albums so I would rather not have to load the images one at a time.

  5. I was able to fix this
    I was able to fix this myself. Delete all of the files, not folders in the following folder:


    This deletes a corrupted database and allows the regeneration of the database, and also the ability for WMP to apply the album info to the album either automatically or when you “FIND ALBUM INFO”.

  6. album art does/does not show up in WMP 11
    Over the years I have added the album art manually to over 2500 songs (embedded within the MP3, not externally). When I play the music in WPM11 the album art displays (when using Album Art as the visualization). However, when I edit the tags for the song, there is no album art. What’s going on? The art is there but I am unable to edit it with WMP11. I can see it with WMP9 on an old XP machine. What gives?

  7. Art work to a CD
    If i burn a Cd from windows media player once i did all the art work, cd text etc, and play it on onother computer do i have to re-do everything again? (re- name the songs add art work)

  8. Media player is so awful it
    Media player is so awful it has now started to get me upset. There is no discernable way to customise the albums it continually gets wrong. There are bonus tracks it decides are other albums, and you can’t add them to the album you want. It shows up these as extra albums with no cover under genre and nowhere else. Hmm oh yes in some categories it lists the same album twice but in others it doesnt. It wont even add my Sigur Ros album at all, just plays it, but it never adds. It did add once and found all info except for track 2 which I have and it has no errors but hey it doesnt exist. Oh now I can play the album and it shows up with album cover under ‘now playing’ but the album doesnt show up i my collection. Awful load of rubbish. What is the easiest way to add albums with this non intuitive software please?

  9. unable to add any correct
    unable to add any correct data automatically, have tried all of the above and have to do each track individually .. not a good situation

  10. music data from net wrong when i rip from cd
    when i rip the music from some CD’s the music data/list is incorrect – totally different as if its from another album completely??? any ideas? – Thanks

  11. Thanks!
    Thanks a lot for your tutorial. I spent 20 minutes last night trying to figure out how to do all this stuff on the Microsoft website and got now where! Though that may be a language issue as the article was in English and my OS is in French (which I can’t read so well). Either way very simple and easy to follow!

  12. Media information missing or incorrect
    I have spent almost a week now trying to sort out an issue with windows media player and ripping and am in need on HELP! I recently purchased a new cd and attempted to rip it to library. All fine, except during rip the album displays only one track which it states is 40.12 in length. The album has 9 tracks and try as I might (by attempting to add missing album info..I at least get album art right!) the player refuses to acknowledge anything other than the one track at 40.12! I have tried to add/edit manually. But again the player says ‘NO’ ‘only one track here and it’s 40.12 long’! Grrr….help please anyone?

  13. Not the same on actual file
    I’ve been able to update album info and art perfectly fine, and it shows up on Windows Media Player. The problem is, it doesn’t always show up on the actual file. Most of my music files have the updated artist, album name, track number, etc., but only a few have the album art as well.

    Another thing: there are a few files that I’ve updated with everything (album art, track number, artist, etc.) on WMP, and it shows up great on there, but NOTHING shows up on the actual file. I could manually put the artist name in, but since it has shown up on the other files, I don’t see a point. If anyone knows why this happens to some files but not others, let me know.

    1. RE: Not the same on actual file
      I had this issue with 4 or five of my MP3’s. I downloaded Real Player and used it to update the info, and it stuck to the actual file when it would NOT do so with WMP. Maybe you could give that a try

  14. Album art on a burnt CD
    I have made a ”mix tape” CD for my friend, in its own case with an album cover. Can I make it so when he rips the CD, the disc stores album info on it, so eg the Album art I have made comes up automaticall, along with the genre, year, and album name?
    Please tell me this is possible!

  15. Restoring deleted albums
    I have a problem the other way around. I have sucessfully generated custom albums together with track names and album art. Then I lost the harddrive, but restored the backup. Some albums I added after the backup date are now listed in the library with custom track names but the actual album does not exist. When I try to re-rip the album it shows up without track names. Is there a way to link it back to the library before ripping or do I have to manually edit every missing album again?

  16. Album information
    Many of my jazz CDs have text content giving interesting background and historical information relating to the CD content. Is there anywhere online I can find the same information to download and is there any facility in Windows Media Player 11.00 that will enable me to save this information for viewing when listening to music saved on my laptop?

  17. Album Art Issues
    I know this is a Vista area, but I don’t know where else to turn. I keep getting referred to this site. Here is the issue:

    I have Win7 and Windows Media Player 12 (both pre-installed on my new laptop.

    When I manually add the album art as instructed the album art is correct until I close WMP. when I re-open it, all the album art is wrong.
    However if I open the folder that contains the MP3’s the album art is the one that I manually added. but it is always wrong when WMP displays it.

    Microsoft online support ( always gives the the same response over and over. (see

    They said the files are
    #1 read-only (but they aren’t – I check it each time)
    #2 Corrupt (they tell me to right click on the MP3 in it’s folder & go to PROPERTIES. They said if I can’t change any info there then the file is corrupt – Geek Squad told me the same thing – the files are not corrupt)
    #3 they tell me to let the player find the album art (but it still shows up wrong in the player
    #4 they tell me I have a virus (I do not)

    Help me PLEASE

  18. The album & tracks dont match the cd
    ive ripped now 75 onto my computer and its comin up with now 64?? the tracks are all different as well. Ive tried finding album info & still its not searching for the correct album .. any ideas??

  19. Transferring files to mp3 player/phone
    Hello all,

    My issue arises when I attempt to transfer WMP files to my cell phone (android-backflip). The song title show up, but unfortunately the album art and the artist are missing and show as unknown. This only happens with the music that I uploaded from a CD and not with music that was downloaded digitally. Any suggestions? Thanks!


  20. Won’t Find Album Info
    When I ripped the last few music CDs to my computer, Windows Media Player won’t find the album info–not tracks, album art, artist, album name–nothing. I have to manually edit everything. a big pain to say the least.

    Anyone know of a fix? And thanks in advance for your help!

    1. Why is it that when I save
      Why is it that when I save details in the file, those details aren’t saved when I add the track in WMP?!?!
      Very frustrating!!!

  21. No Webpage?????
    When attempting to ‘Find Album Info’ I get a message telling me that the program cannot display the webpage. I’m connected to the internet and can see no reason why I should have a problem… any ideas?

    Thanks and vbr

  22. WMP doesn’t work like this!!!
    It doesn’t work like this at all. It makes you select every single track of every single album and match every track there is no match all option, their is NO confirmation of anything – just lots and lots of work just to be a pain in the @rse for not letting wmp and msn walk all over you. WMP is a useless piece of crap AVOID

  23. Missed features: “Paste art album” & “Advanced tag editor”
    I scanned all the previous FAQs and failed to find the answer to my impediment: while at WMP library the right-click of my cursor is missing two essential features like “Paste art album” and “Advanced tag editor”. The available options are only limited to “Find album info” and “Update album info”. I tried to reinstall the WMP (latest version 12) but it didn’t help. Is there any solution to get the lost features back? At least, I used to have one of them like “Paste art album” in the past.

  24. Me too! Help!
    Same problem; my computer says:

    Server not found

    Firefox can’t find the server at

    Check the address for typing errors such as instead of

    (nice connected computer running windows 7 64 bit professional on firefox – always used to work!)

    if i enter manually it won’t go!

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